Chapter Three: The Phantom Dog in the Mirror

I left Loper to his “Operation Honeydew” business and got away from Sally May’s yard as quickly as I could. I mean, this might have been the Christmas season and all, but a guy didn’t want to take too many chances with her “peace and goodwill,” not where the yard was concerned.

Now, it was okay for the cat to come and go as he pleased. He could lounge around the porch, sharpen his claws on the trees, rub on the legs of everyone who came out the door, and beg for scraps all day long. But let a dog set foot in the yard and suddenly the air was filled with sticks and rocks and harsh words.

It sure wasn’t fair, and when I rounded the northwest corner of the yard and saw Pete up ahead, sitting in front of the machine shed, I decided to strike a blow for Fairness and Justice.

He was parked there on the gravel drive in front of the big double doors, see, had his tail wrapped around his hindquarters and was staring at a bird perched on the tin roof. Oh, and the last two inches of his tail were moving back and forth, a sure sign that he was up to no good.

No doubt he had it in his mind to capture and eat this bird, this poor innocent little sparrow. No doubt this poor innocent charming little songbird had planned for months and months to fly south with all her little birdy friends, but perhaps she had learned at the last minute that one of her little wings was damaged and wouldn’t carry her south with all the rest of her friends and relatives.

And her family. In a tearful ceremony, she had said good-bye to her five lovely children . . . her husband of many years . . . her devoted father who now cried teaspoons of tears . . . her poor old grand­mother . . . the mother who had fed her worms and bugs and watched her grow into a beautiful charming lovely innocent little songbird.

Oh, what a sad day that had been, as all the birds on the ranch had gathered for the long and dangerous journey to . . . wherever it is down south that birds go . . . South America, South Africa, South Texas, Abilene, somewhere down there . . . oh, what a sad day that had been!

And now Pete was staring at that same bird with his cunning yellow eyes, his heartless cunning yellow eyes, and flicking that last two inches of tail.

This touching scene almost broke my heart, and since Rip and Snort had almost broke my face only minutes before, it seemed only fair and right that I should, heh heh, strike a blow for Fairness, Motherhood, and Wildlife, and give the cat the kind of pounding he deserved.

Because I never had much use for Pete in the first place. Have we discussed cats? I don’t like ’em, never have, for reasons too numerous to mention.

So I went into Stealthy Crouch Mode and slipped up behind old Pete—he never saw it coming, never suspected a thing, tee hee—and I jumped right in the middle of him.

HISS! REEEEEEER!

Hee hee, ha ha, ho ho. He sprang into the air and turned wrongside-out . . . did manage to tag me in several spots with his claws, right on the end of my nose, in fact, which brought tears to my eyes, but they were tears of joy . . . I mean, a guy can’t expect to get free entertainment in this life.

Yes, I did pay a small price, but hearing him hiss and yowl made every scratch worthwhile. And then I chased him up the nearest tree.

That was fun too. Wouldn’t this be a sad old world if we couldn’t chase cats up a tree every once in a while?

“Well, Pete, how’s the bird business today?”

He looked down at me with his big cat eyes. “Mmmm, my goodness, I believe Hankie the Wonder Dog has just arrived.”

“That’s correct, Kitty, here to protect our National Wildlife Heritage from the likes of you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, picking on poor innocent sparrows.”

He gave me a sour smile. “As a matter of fact, Hankie, they were picking on me. They’ve been dive-bombing me all morning.”

“I’m, tee hee, sorry to hear that, Pete. Maybe you should quit staring at them, as though you were thinking of eating them.”

“Me? Why, I wouldn’t think of doing such a thing.”

“Of course you would. You want a nice tender little bird for breakfast, but you’re too fat and slow to catch one. Too bad, Pete, but don’t get discouraged. Just remember: You might be slow but you sure aren’t fast. Ho, ho, ho.”

He rolled his eyes. “Somehow that doesn’t make sense, Hankie.”

“That’s fine, because making sense with a cat isn’t something I worry about. In fact, talking with a cat, any cat, is a waste of my valuable time.”

He gave me that weird cat smile of his—a smile that makes you think he knows a secret. “Oh, I’m not so sure about that, Hankie. Sometimes we cats see things that might be of interest to the Head of Ranch Security.”

I couldn’t help chuckling. “I doubt that, Kitty.”

“Mmmm, well, whatever you think, Hankie, but I can tell you that we cats are very observant.” He turned his big cat eyes on me and grinned. “We see things.”

My ears jumped to their upright position. I guess I had taken them off Manual Lift-Up and switched them over to Automatic, and in that mode they react to even the smallest of protuberations.

“What do you mean, you see things?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. I’m sure it would be a waste of your valuable time.”

I noticed that he still wore that secret grin. He knew something, and I intended to find out what it was.

“Pete, if you’ve seen something suspicious, I’d advise you to report it at once. And quit grinning at me. That gives me the creeps.”

“Have you been to the machine shed this morning, Hankie?”

“No, I haven’t been inside the machine shed for two days.”

“Hmmm, then you don’t know about the Phantom in the Mirror, do you?”

“No, I don’t, Kitty, nor do I have any . . . what Phantom and what mirror?”

He took his sweet time getting around to business. Sitting up there in the fork of the tree, he licked his front paw, wrapped his tail around his haunches, and stared down at me.

“I’m waiting, cat. You’re wasting my time.”

“Patience, Hankie. What I’m going to tell you will be worth the wait.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Because . . .” He widened his eyes and dropped his voice to a whisper, “. . . because I saw a very strange thing this morning.”

“Never mind the dramatics, Pete, get to the point.”

“I saw a dog in the machine shed.”

“Impossible. If we’d had a stray dog on this ranch, I would have been the first to know about it.”

“That’s what I thought, Hankie, and that’s what made it so strange. Maybe you were asleep.”

“Lies, Pete, nothing but lies. And for your infor­mation, I wasn’t asleep. I was out in front of the house, thrashing cannibals.”

“Whatever you say, Hankie, but I saw a dog in the machine shed not thirty minutes ago.”

My first instinct was to laugh at this wild story. In fact, I did laugh, but I noticed that Pete wasn’t laughing. “You’re serious about this, Pete. You’re telling me an outrageous story that I can’t possibly believe, but you’re not laughing. That bothers me.”

“Yes, it bothered me too. And I wondered what he meant when he said . . . oh, you wouldn’t be interested.”

I wasn’t laughing any more. “You’re exactly right, Kitty, I’m not interested, but if he said something, I want to know what it was. Now.”

“He said . . . let’s see if I can remember how he put it . . . he said something about taking over the ranch.”

“He said THAT?”

“Um-hmmm, yes he did.”

Suddenly I caught myself and realized that I had made a fundamental error. Just for a moment or two, I had allowed myself to get sucked into Pete’s story. How could I have been so stupid?

ME, believe anything a cat said?

Yes, I had made an error in judgment but I had caught it just in the nickering of time. I marched a few steps away, took five deep breaths of air, looked at the clouds, and talked the hair on my back into laying down where it belonged.

Only then did I return to the cat and laugh in his face. “Nice try, Pete. I mean, that was a great story. No one can lie better than a cat. You’ve got a real talent there.”

“Thank you, Hankie.”

“But of course I don’t believe a word of it. You didn’t really think I would, did you? Why, that’s the craziest . . . where did you see this so-called stray dog? I mean, just for laughs, I’d like to know.”

He stared at me with those big unblinking eyes. “Near the north wall of the machine shed, there is a mirror with a wooden frame around it, like a window but not a window. I could see him in the glass.”

“Oh, I see. You looked in a mirror and saw a dog. It gets better and better, Pete. I’m just sorry I can’t stick around and hear the rest. Thanks for the entertainment and I hope you’re enjoying the tree.”

And with that, I wheeled around and left the cat sitting in the rubble of his shabby little scheme.